#232 Inequality and Revolution with Jack Goldstone

Jack Goldstone is historical sociologist whose studies have focused on revolutions. I think he's great--I agreed with him on pretty much every point he made, even when he was contradicting Sam.

He told Sam the reason revolutions happen is not because the rich get too much richer, per se, but rather that their motivations change from helping their society to mere self-enrichment. Because the rest of the population does not care so much about the increase in wealth of the rich--we don't care about their gold plated toilets or million-dollar yachts--but we do care if we find that we are working harder amd harder for less benefit. When enough of the population decides that the system is no longer working for anyone but the elites, then conditions are ripe for a revolt.

Jack said this inequality of living conditions is higher now in the US than it has been since the 1800s.

He also pointed out that a map of the US counties that Trump carried in 2016 almost perfectly overlaps the counties whose populations experienced a decline in life expectancy in the past 20 years. (It's worth noting that both Sam and Jack draw a connection between voting for Trump and participating in a revolution of sorts.)

The precursors to the life expectancy decline were, of course, loss of real wages and diminished employment opportunities in those counties. The system was no longer working for them. And so people in those counties have an image of greedy elites on the coasts hoarding and off-shoring their wealth at the expense of the rest of the country.

Sam asked Jack if increasing taxes on the wealthy is the right approach to solving that problem. He pointed out that a common argument against paying taxes is that government doesn’t work well. Though he observes that's really only an argument to improve government and not for wealthy people to stop paying taxes. But Jack didn't go there with Sam. Instead, he mentioned three things that need to happen before we can expect people to willingly pay higher taxes.
1: Convince people that government is capable of effective action (like we used to believe in the 1950s, when the government built the highway systems, developed vaccines, and such).
2: Elites need to work together and find common ground for improvements instead of merely dividing into two political camps and competing against each other.
3: We need people to feel that the tax system is fair and that the middle class are not paying a greater percentage than the rich.

They turned to the question of the flight of high-tech out of California, and Jack took a point of view that I share, that the recent flight of certain high-tech companies from California should not be a cause for concern for Californians left behind, for three reasons.
1: The impact on California may be positive if real estate prices go back down into the range of the rational.
It's better for the California economy--as well as the economy of the whole country--if one industry isn't too concentrated and powerful here.
3: Finally, let them leave! Those of us left behind in the Bay Area won't be losing much if the people leaving have a higher commitment toward their own personal greed than toward a functional society with a diverse and robust urban experience.

Jack wasn't enthusiastic about Sam's pet project of UBI. But he did like the same thing I do: a mandatory universal service program where everyone at 18 goes into the military or the peace corps or the social services for something for a year. Jack added that after that, everyone can get paid a chunk of money like $30k for their time, and to set them on the road toward their futures. I hadn't considered that possibility before but that's a nice idea!

One last note I'll make is that I think Jack's spot on that all of these talking heads referencing the progress of the Dow Jones as though that were the measure of anything fundamental to the US economy are all deluded. The stock market is no longer best measure of quality of life in the US. It now mostly reflects the financial and tech sectors, which are not big employers, and does not give a picture of the health of manufacturing or services or even employement, as we have seen in this recent COID blow to the economy which was not reflected in the Dow.